


Little reminder

by thecrownofthereveur



Series: Under Gotham's rainy sky [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:42:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecrownofthereveur/pseuds/thecrownofthereveur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oswald opened the apartment’s door hesitantly. When he didn’t find his mother seated in the living room, waiting for him with upset eyes for not having called her last night, he went to the bathroom, desperate to get rid of that smell from his body. The smell of the sweat.The smell of the city.The smell of Jim Gordon´s cologne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little reminder

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the kudos, and thanks to Allowship for correcting my work! hope you like!

Jim was standing straight in the middle of his living room. His breath was caught between his lungs and throat, and he honestly didn’t know what to do. He had just entered his apartment, and he was planning to take a bath and rest, but right now that didn’t seem to be an option.

‘Hello, Jim,’ Barbara said, disclosing his arms and looking at him with those small blue eyes. Jim swallowed, feeling the nerves burn in his body. He hadn’t been prepared for seeing Barbara, much less confronting her after a tough day at his job – in fact, all days were tough when you were the only one willing to accomplishyour work. She apologized, to Jim’s surprise; not that Barbara was a proud person when it came to them. He was just surprised. Surprised at her hugging him. Surprised at her kissing him. And then, almost instantly, Jim’s body relaxed against her. He felt relieved somehow, knowing that he wouldn’t keep returning every night to an empty apartment, that the loneliness he had felt the last weeks was going to disappear. For now, at least.

But then, feeling tickles in his nose at the touch of Barbara’s blond hair, Jim glanced at the couch. There, hidden in one of the sides, he saw a tie, a black, very classical tie that it was definitely not his. Jim paled slightly, remembering Oswald’s breath against his jaw, Oswald’s cold hands making paths in the skin of his throat. He closed his eyes strongly, trying to concentrate on the smell of Barbara’s perfume, that one he used to like so much. No one needed to know what had happened in that apartment that particular night. It was better for him to forget it.

***

Oswald returned home using the subway. He just had a couple of bucks in his pockets (he didn’t think he would need a lot of money just for dropping by Jim Gordon’s house to apologize for the scene in Maroni’s restaurant) and his bad leg didn’t seem to want him walking in the street all the way to his mother’s apartment. Walking away from Jim’s place, Oswald tried to fix his disheveled appearance, not quite succeeding. It was very early in the morning, and the few persons in the street weren’t paying him a lot of attention. That was something, at least. Taking a glance at his aspect in the window of a car, Oswald felt angry. He passed a hand though his hair, trying to comb it. In the subway, he started to feel tired, his stomach was growling, the muscles in his bad leg were starting to pain him, and his clothes were a disaster. He noticed then that he didn’t have his tie anymore. He remembered how Jim had taken it from him last night, trying to unbutton his shirt. He sighed, closing his eyes with languishment. Right now, everything was a mess.

Oswald opened the apartment’s door hesitantly. When he didn’t find his mother seated in the living room, waiting for him with upset eyes for not having called her last night, he went to the bathroom, desperate to get rid of that smell from his body. The smell of the sweat.The smell of the city.The smell of Jim Gordon´s cologne.He closed the door, leaning his back against it and once again passing a hand through his hair. The memories of last night didn’t want to leave his mind. Jim’s apartment. Jim’s couch. Jim’s head thrown backwards, his throat exposed and his Adam’s apple moving with his breathing.Oswald sighed with frustration. It wasn’t like he could fix anything just by mortifying himself with it.

And still he was doing it.

He just couldn’t understand. Jim was supposed to be his friend, his ally, his inside man in the police station even if he hadn’t realized it. He was Gotham’s hope – because every broken city with corrupt cops and dirty systems needed that to remain: Hope. Therefore, he was a crucial part of Oswald’s plan. Why had Jim, knowing that, risked everything by surrendering himself so recklessly to carnal pleasure? And why with Oswald, a former gangster of Fish Money who was currently working for Maroni?

And why Oswald hadn’t stopped him?

The worst was, maybe, that Cobblepot knew the answer to that question. Deep inside him, he had wanted this to happen. And while doing it, he hadn’t wanted to put it to an end. He didn’t know how to feel about that. He couldn't get comfort letting himself fall in the oblivion, or pretending none of it had happened. He just wasn't like that. Even so, maybe Jim was, he thought, opening the shower faucet and starting to get rid of his clothes.

***

‘So the girl is back,’ Harvey said,sitting next to Jim at the restaurant’s table.

Jim, like waking up from a dream, looked at him and nodded.

‘Yeah, she…’ he said, insecure, ‘she’s back.’

‘Then why do you have that long face?’ Harvey asked sulkily while drinking his coffee. Jim didn’t answer. He sipped from his own cup, looking at the table as though thinking on something really important. His eyebrows were furrowed, his hands were claws clutching over his coffee, and he was thinking about anything but the hot breakfast of eggs and toast he had in front of him. The image of Oswald that night when he opened the door hadn’t left him alone in days. Oswald. Well dressed. Standing straight. Smiling. Then Oswald against the wall, panting and grabbing Jim’s shirt, pants, and belt. He just couldn’t get rid of it, not of the memory, not of the fear in his belly or the remorse in his mind when Barbara had apologized to him so sincerely.

‘Hey, Jimbo, are you okay?’ Harvey asked with some disquiet, looking at his friend with a puzzled face. Realizing it, Jim softened his features trying to smile.

‘Yes, I’m okay,’ he said, taking a bite from his breakfast. ‘It’s all fine…’

Harvey didn’t push the subject. But his eyes, like knives, didn’t leave Jim until they left to start their shift.

***

When Oswald found out about Jim’s detention, he decided to take his time to make a good presentation. Detective Montoya, he knew, had his own personal reasons to seek Jim’s arrest. But even so, he was surprised to know that she had done it. He was at home when he received the phone call with the information. His mother was making dinner in the kitchen, and she didn’t hide her vexed face when Oswald told her he was about to leave. Before getting out, Oswald took a look at himself in the mirror. He was wearing his best suit with a black tie, along with his shiny shoes and an umbrella. He wanted to look good and formal. This was, after all, the best opportunity he had to make what was inevitable, the opportunity to make all Gotham know that he was not dead, and that he was no longer Fish Money’s umbrella-man. That he was Oswald Cobblepot and he was starting to be someone – and someone to be feared. But most of all, he wanted to make Jim Gordon know that despite his last encounter he was a grateful man, and that he would not let Jim go to jail because of him. The idea of Jim behind bars, surrounded by hostile criminals, just wasn't appealing to him.

***

When Jim saw Oswald entering the police station his eyes widened as they hadn’t in a long time. Harvey was grabbing him by his shirt, and he could be punched in the face in any moment. But right now he couldn’t care less about that. The whole place stayed quiet. Oswald was standing there in front of everyone, with that crooked smile of his. He seemed even pleased with all those eyes, all the room’s attention focusing on him. His smiled widened. ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Oswald Cobblepot.’

Jim felt Harvey’s hand gripping him stronger than before. He felt his friend’s eyes like daggers in his body. But he couldn’t get his eyes away from Oswald’s somehow pathetic theatrical scene. He couldn’t do it even when he was leaving, followed by his bodyguards, and looking at Jim with strange eyes and slightly tilting his head.

***

That night, Jim went to Barbara’s apartment feeling confused. Since their reconciliation Jim had spent some nights there after work, but it was strange for some reason. Before, when everything was still a bit normal, he could usually spend three or four consecutive days in Barbara’s place. Now he just stayed for one night or two per week, rarely consecutives. He wanted to think that they were slowing down after all the things that had happened lately. But he couldn’t stop feeling like something wasn’t there anymore. It was like a void. Like a strange sensation deepening in his gut when he was thinking about the dateless wedding they had talked about so enthusiastically some months ago. The same wedding in which they hadn’t talked again since their first big fight just some weeks before Barbara had left. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think that he didn’t trust Barbara like he had done in the past. Because inside him, he knew he loved her, he had missed her, and he was grateful to have her back.

He had just come out of the station. He had almost run when the officers let him go, looking at him with sharp eyes. After Cobblepot left the place, it all had gone mad. Harvey had punched him in the guts. They both had been in a cell for a while without speaking to each other and when they came out, Harvey got out of the place without looking back. And Jim knew, because of something in his eyes, that the man was going to pass the next hours seated in a bar drinking like a pig. He frowned, not wanting to picture it. But instead, the eyes of Oswald appeared in his mind, the way he had looked at him before leaving. Jim had felt fear when he saw him there at the first moment. His view was for him a not so little reminder of that night some weeks ago; that one night Jim avoided thinking about, that one that chased him in the bed, in the shower, in his job while drinking his morning coffee.

Jim entered the apartment, and he found Barbara there seated in the living room. She was waiting for him, a hand on her forehead, a concerned expression in her glassy eyes. Jim left his briefcase beside the door, and he walked towards her to kiss her. Kiss her to think about her hair, her perfume, her smile. Kiss her to convince himself that this was right. Kiss her to stop thinking about that night, and about Cobblepot’s pale lips smiling at him.

***

‘Jim, is there something wrong?’ Barbara asked suddenly.

Jim blinked, glancing at her.

He was apparently daydreaming again. He was lying in bed with his torso naked. Barbara was at his side half asleep and grabbing him by his arm. He should try to calm down, he thought; this day had been long, strange and exhausting. He should rest. He should look at Barbara and tell her that all was fine. The problem was that it wasn’t.

‘No, it’s nothing,’ he said, smiling at her. She tiltedher head, mildly closing her somnolent eyes.

‘Good night, then,’ she said before falling asleep.

‘Good night,’ Jim responded, caressing her hair. But then, when his hand was just inches from the light switch, Jim looked at the ware box in which he had put Oswald’s tie. Jim pressed his lips in a tight line and he turned off the light, putting his head in the pillow to try to sleep.


End file.
